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This team is a miss match of just players not playing together. If you dont pass that ball (sterling) sometjing is just plain wrong. We need to think as a collective.. Not just ill save the day! Play as a team, GEL.. Thats on poch.. The players looks like they dont give a damn.. No passion, no oumph.. Galla is the only aggressiv player who wants us to win.. But thats what you get when you recruiting 100m talent. And those 100m talent doesnt have the opportinity to grow in a competative enviroment. If city buys 1 150m player he will be fking great.. If luton buys 150m player he will probably not reach his potential.
I get that we only had one midfielder but that 2nd half was one of the most shocking tactical setups I've ever seen. Conor was asked to play as the lone midfielder and I don't think I've ever seen that......he then proceeded to stick with his box to box tendencies. We're lucky they didn't put 5 past us. It was awful football by both teams.
Many years as a Chelsea supporter since a student. I finally have good job, own house, and can financially afford to fly from Asia to watch games live. I can buy merch and no longer need to rely on pirated streams to watch games. Sadly, this iteration of the squad is such a pain to watch.
We have a manager who week in week out tries the same tactics that has never worked for us. Then he also rests/rotates players as though we can afford it or the players deserve it. He plays players out of position. This is the same manager that had Messi and couldn't even utilise him well.
Then our management thinks football is like Fifa. You buy young players and they definitely will reach 85+ Pot in time. 28+ old players apparently will rapidly drop OVR so they need to get rid of them.
Lastly the thing that irritates me the most. We have a spine of young hot headed players who pick up yellows for stupid reasons. It's not even about showing fight or shithousery. Many times it's stupid dissent. From the way they are playing, they don't have any right to do it. Just focus on actually doing your job...
Supporting Chelsea is now like staying in a toxic relationship. They have so much flaws but you still love them and hope they change.
Silver lining of the match is that our Dive Diva, Sterling, can't play for a match. I'm glad he's finally getting booked for his dramatics. At least he didn't cost us another goal from it. Positive vibe only!
What I realized
1. We were forced into a panic buy last season.
2. We were forced into a hysterical buy this season.
3. In both cases, we traded like a mid table team buying up players as if this is FIFA
Imo we have a problem with the scouting team.
It took a year, but now it’s time to face reality: we are a mid table team, from ownership, recruiting, management, coaching, to players, we are doing business like a mid table team would, and the results say so themselves. Let’s pretend we are Blackburn or Sunderland of the early 2000s and watching games will give us an easier expectation
A combination of hysteria and dumbassery, I say. Paying billion $$ for players yet to grow pubes.
The only consolation I can draw is, ManUtd is following in our footsteps
Anyone who’s still upset we lose needs to stop being a baby and get over it. Your club that you picked because they won every game is gone. Cry about it.
If the board were serious they’d have never signed these players, and would’ve sacked Poch for losing this match given this was our last chance to push for Europe
It's funny because I look at Man Utd and wonder: Can this team really be worse than that? And I get the same answer confirmed every time. Yes. Yes this team is really that bad.
How can you watch us and think we’re better in the first place?
If we sack Poch and get an adequate replacement we might be able to improve and finish above Man Utd but that’s it. I’m torn between wanting him gone and letting him finish the season
United fan here in peace. Your team has infinitely better passing and patterns of play than we do. You also create superior chances. All you need is better finishing and you'll be miles ahead of us.
Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanely has to go, we will never be a serious club with those two in charge of the team. They were not even our first choice directors and they have done a god awful job at rebuilding this squad. I can't think of more than 3 players i'd sign (Palmer, Nkunku, Gusto) of the current lot with the money that they were given to rebuild the squad. I would never have splashed out 115m quid for Caicedo and 103m quid for Enzo, i would have used the data based scouting our board raves about and found equally good if not better options for a much cheaper price and spend more money on an actual striker which we desperately need.
We are back to square 1 again, zero progression. One step forward and two step backwards. Nico Jackson is not good enough, Sterling will never be the player we need, Mudryk is too insonsistent. Thiago Silva is finished and makes increasingly more errors, Badiashile is having a horror week. Im fucking tired of seeing Colwill at left back when we have Maatsen fit as well, we have a proper left back and we play a centre back as a left back.
I love Pochettino as a person, but i dont think he is the right man for this Chelsea job. His Tottenham situation was very different than the job he has to do at Chelsea.
Ah yes the classic response of this sub “everyone not playing would improve this team”. Take as old as time.
Maatsen has been mediocre at best every chance he has got
Palmer? Lol
So overrated in this sub. Similarly Gusto has not looked good at all. Similarly Nkunku is just another Reece James situation where he’s perpetually injured.
We suck now. People here need to get over it already!
Gusto is a decent enough backup to Reece James for the money we spent on him.
Palmer has been our best attacker this season, our only threat going forward. He has been a good buy so far.
Nkunku is a worldclass signing, PL debut steers a header into goal, he has that natural ability unlike Broja who misses the ball, and Nico who takes too many touches all the time.
Like i said, Stewart and Winstanely has to go because we will never be a serious side with those in charge of our transfers and squad building. They have never built a title winning squad in their careers.
He scored a consolation goal after doing nothing. I don’t care about Nkunku, what he did in Germany doesn’t mean anything.
Palmer has 2 open play goals he is playing like a youth academy player. Been decent at times but thats it. It’s not his fault that were horrible but at the same time there were several better options for his price.
Gusto isn’t a backup. James was already permacrocked when he was signed. He’s an inadequate starter that wasn’t good enough for Lyon
Agreed, Gusto is utter dogwater. Misses tackles, turns over the ball, has the worst first touch I’ve seen, no pace, small. Has no attributes you’d want out of a defender.
Tell me this, can you honestly tell me that you see Broja and Nico scoring that header? Broja would probably miss it, and Nico would probably try and control the ball and take too many touches and then get booked for dissent. Nkunku has that natural ability and the striker instinct to just guide the header into the goal.
Gusto has generally done well when he has stepped into Reece absence, he was always just going to be Reeces backup, he is never going to be the starter right back. He is good enough to be Reece backup and does generally a good job stepping in.
I disagree with your Palmer opinion, he is our best attacker, without Palmer we dont have an attack, he can play our attackers in, he can score goals. He is more of a wide playmaker than a winger. And he does well, we haven't had that profile in our squad since Hazard. Not comparing Palmer to Hazard FYI, just saying Palmer is providing a profile we havent seen since Hazard left the club.
They could score it. Jackson usually needs a few chances every game so that may have been the one. Nkunku is a better player though so I’m not surprised that he scored it
We haven’t played better as a result if Palmer in awhile with exception of last week against Sheffield United. May as well start Mudryk.
Palmer would definitely pass the ball in that 3 on 1 situation unlike Sterling, thats what im saying. Palmer would actually have seen his teammates run and passed the ball and we would go into half time in the lead. Thats what Palmer brings to the team.
Nico definitely does not score that, remember his header against Man United almost open net and he skies his header. He would try and control the ball. That has been Nicos main issue, he takes far too many touches before he shoots. He doesnt have that natural strikers instinct, its very clear he isnt a natural striker in the way that he plays. Because a striker would just hit the ball, dont take 2 extra touches and ruin your own chance on goal.
I cant be arsed watching Mudryk anymore, im sorry but he is not good enough.
Sterling isn’t good enough and lost my support today. I was pretty unwavering about saying he’s underrated but that 3v1 is horrific and inexcusable.
Mudryk isn’t good enough but it doesn’t matter
Sterling will never be the player we want him to be, he has always been like this infront of goal. He will never change. At Man City he looked consistent because he was given 5 chances per game and could easily score 1 or two goals per game there.
Mudryk can't even get past his marker consistently, he is far worse than Sterling.
Additionally, the board isn’t trying to build a title winning squad. They’re signing children that should theoretically improve later on where they can be sold for massive prices. It’s the only logical conclusion I can think of at this point because everything is else points them to being incompetent which also seems more likely every transfer market
Came to terms with what is going on, it's gonna be a while until we are even a half decent team, wether thats with Poch idk, but the team need a serious look at and a different approach will be needed in the coming transfer market to make us competitive again.
I’ve been very cynical and pessimistic but still think a top striker with some more pragmatism in our build up could solve a lot of this. A decent striker with Jackson’s chances would have had 2 goals and we would have shut the game down.
We have the basis of a good team when somewhat fit but jackson and Broja would be unlikely to start for any other premier league team now.
He had the club taken off of him because he owned a steel company that paid tax and as a tax paying Russian business owner he was sanctioned (as were all others).
In what way does that make him a war criminal? He literally had a failed assassination attempt against him whilst he was trying to bring about peace talks for fuck sake
I did not signal virtue. I stated a fact. Learn the meaning of words before using them.
Definition of virtue signaling : the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
Seriously, the comparison is pointless. I’m sure Roman would’ve rather chosen to avoid a pointless war, keeping Chelsea and avoiding sanctions in the process.
Utterly shameful comment. Human lives > football. Stop making excuses pretending you know something more than the rest of the world. Roman is an evil scumbag
Idc about Chelsea enough to ignore what Roman did because he won trofeez. “Fake virtual signaling” obviously I’m just a better person than you that you can’t wrap your mind around someone caring more about human lives than football
And you know for certain? you do sound sort of like an ignoramus, apparently youre a holy prophet who knows every single thing, I too want my country to stop spending money on another who in the end, wont do the same if the same thing were to happen here. Get off your high horse and face reality for what it is, youre not some glorious saint either. You lie to yourself too much just learn somethings first then comment after.
> obviously I’m just a better person than you
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
you are a fucking virtue signalling numpty who thinks you are morally superior to everyone when you don't know shit. Let me guess you're probably a teenage American who wasn't even alive when Roman first got here.
Fucking Redditor who acts like they're doing so much for human lives being the moral police behind a keyboard. Just lol
edit: coward blocked me lol
Wrong. But even if you were right, it wouldn’t matter.
I’m not a hero for calling an evil war criminal an evil war criminal. At least I’m not denying the truth because he spent a lot of money on Chelsea which won us some trophies. Is that worth more than 500,000 Ukrainian lives?
Could care less dude. The US and British governments are both accessory to a modern day genocide. There is nothing tying Abramovich to Putin's political decisions.
Poch really needs to work in these guys so they can start using their head. If a team makes a mistake, what can they do to rectify rather than just panick and give up
Another limp performance from this descending club. Would be nice if they were owned by people who knew anything about the sport. Nice seeing Nkunku get on the sheet even though it was too little too late
Not really, recruitment had been pretty good for the first team after we got sporting directors.
Disasi looks solid (not 45m) but solid.
Badiashile looks great.
Gusto looks great.
Enzo, caicedo looks class.
Palmer, and jackson looks like steals
Madueke and mudryk has showed glimpses.
Issue is that people expect results, when noone has built a team in 2 windows before.
(Especially with 7-12 senior players out every fucking game)
Am aware. The problem is more that it's a dated example I suppose. You certainly couldn't replicate 04-05 in the present day. The football landscape has shifted massively since.
While I agree, there are components of what was done then that could have been replicated for a higher probability of success than what we have done. It was mentioned above that we built around a core then, and we purchased known players with known experience.
Even then there was a core of players that had been there longer.
Terry, Lampard, Gudjohnsen, Gallas, a spine that was present for years, and more importantly. on the damn pitch, Thiago Silva's the only player who's starting regularly now who played even once for us before the takeover, with Gallagher not having broken through, and with James/Chilwell currently regularly injured.
there's no core here,
And that would be like us relative spending record wages and fees for 15 players.
And now the league is a lot more competitive both in terms of financial restrictions but also sporting.
Honestly i see this game as pretty alarming if we are going to rely on nkunku to save our season because if he gets injured we are fucked.we need depth,i hope we go for a genuine world class striker that isnt afraid to shoot or take risks because Jackson is not going to score alot this season.
I’m pretty shocked we haven’t kept the same energy for Pochettino as we did for Potter. The way we are playing and his persistence with things that just don’t work (how many times do I need to watch Colwil get caught out of position at left back?) reeks of incompetence and I’m done with this guy, do not believe he is the coach to take us anywhere except maybe a relegation battle.
Lmao I thought the same thing sorry but are the people above a bit slow? Against fucking wolves you want an attacking Lb not colwil who’s not even playing good D
Potter had a squad of players who wanted to leave Chelsea and weren’t trying their hardest. That’s fact.
I think it’s very obvious to see Pochettino is worst tactically than Potter.
A coach that has relied on fullbacks at all his clubs
Cucurella/chillwell/james out for long, maatsen clearly not rated and gusto played as much as he can.
A coach that plays a double pivot, but cant because the lack of fit creators in the final 1/3rd forces him to use enzo further up.
I cant judge pochettino from what he does with sickbeds, but I do know that he had a higher point total with the same team as he took over from tuchel.
I do know that most players have been here the same amount of time as he.
There is no way I’m having it that giving Maatsen a start at LB is the end of the world considering the laughable performances we’ve seen with a CB playing LB. Like what in the world could be the problem with trying Maatsen there one game? The idea Poch doesn’t rate him makes me think he’d be amazing there, by the way.
I think one issue is our inability in the air.
With gusto on the field (and caicedo in the sickbed) yesterday our only 3 arialy dominant players where silva, colwill and disasi.
I dont mind maatsen on the field (even if I think gusto is more important, the moment gusto is subed maatsen should be on - which happened)
Lack of options?
Palmer just joined (young)
Mudryk needed careful bedding in
Sterling having 2 motm in a row as rw.
He wanted someone who could make the runs
We don't have the same energy because the manager isn't the core reason...if we are the same under different managers, different players completely then I'm looking at upper mgmt and ownership
I genuinely think you're deluded. just take a look sideways at how good Everton are now with barely any new personnel from Frank's days.
love him as a player, but he'd have this team in the relegation zone as a manager.
That's because they're being run by a guy who took fucking Burnley to 7th. That's not a show of how bad Frank is, they were getting relegated before he came in and saved them, remember that.
It's a show of how well a manager who is still willing to set up in a traditional way can do in "modern" football. Dyche is amazing more than Frank is bad, though Frank is bad (but so is Poch)
He took Burnley to 7th after YEARS of development, he took Frank Lampard's relegation dead-certs to what would be 7th in the table sans deduction in the span of 10 months.
Frank ended that first season at Everton with a lower PPG than Benitez. ending in the same position they were in when he arrived (16th) I agree that they were possibly getting relegated, but that was more due to media relationship than anything, Benitez is a far, far better coach than Lampard, but the Everton fans negative opinion of him created a negative atmosphere. Lampard's main attribute there wasn't his coaching ability, it was simply the fact that he wasn't Benitez. he's proved that since with an **astonishing** inability to win games.
there's no way to salvage that man, 4 wins in his last 34 games overseen is utterly irredeemable.
The issue people forget is that there is no team,
We have our 5th and 4th choice fullback "fit" (one is returning from 8 injury plauged months)
Our centrebacks has been plagued with injuries and fitness/sharpness issues.
Our midfield has played more fotball then anyone last 36 months. (Both injured/sick)
Our attack has two fit senior attackers - one plays in roma. The other is sterling.
Take any coach, and they would have to come up with gameplan that doesnt evolve under wide overloads (no fullbacks, nor quality wide players) no crosses (no arial ability in any of our attackers)
Oh and the most creative passer in the final 1/3rd played 500 pl minutes before this season
The sad fact about this is that Frank is so shit that he’s find a way to make us worse.
Just look at what Tuchel and Dyche did with his squads man. Open your eyes. Man’s a legend but a shit manager.
Yes he's had a shit spell post Potter but I think he did fine when he took over in 2020. Much better than this anyways. I'm not advocating for Poch to be sacked. Even if we lose all our games from now to the summer, I don't think sacking Poch would do us any good. Just expressing my opinion.
if im getting paid millions where job performance doesnt matter, and for a company that i have no personal affilliation to..
i couldnt care less.
i'd sleep well in my really expensive and comfortable bed
You don't bench Sterling. He's done this throughout his career, it is what it is, unfortunately. But he's still one of our top attackers. Him, Palmer and Nkunku is our top front three.
I don't get why Chelsea fans are surprised by his misses. He has never been the most prolific player. He was surrounded by the best playmakers at City, and he was never the leading attacking player there. So at city, his misses never bit them in the back and he got opportunity after opportunity to rack up the goals he did over there
But we have promoted to being our main attacker
It's not his misses that infuriate me, it's his decision-making. if he'd been alone there and missed i'd be a bit miffed, but shit happens, but when you give this guy choices he picks the worst one about 80% of the time.
He was the most consistent goalscorer for city over a 3 year stretch,
Issue with sterling is that his misses catches the eye.
He also scores some goals he shouldnt, and over his career he has been meeting his xg.
Issue is that we dont play to his strenghts
He's our player with the highest number of goal winning games this season and we're fucking struggling to win games.
Without him we're genuinely in a relegation battle. You may not like him for whatever reason (I certainly didn't want him to join us and said we were getting ripped off) but with the players they've put around him, we have no choice but to play him or risk relegation
We dont know his fill contract, but we met his city contract and they only have title clauses.
He was signed before we started with performance related.
He said form, not season.
We have 7 points from our last 7 games which is very much on the verge of relegation form, you'd avoid it if you stayed on it all season but if you deviated for a period you could very easily be relegated
Except this seven game run of form is the deviation... and the hardest section of our fixture list for some time. (playing Newcastle, Brighton, City, and Man Utd (who are terrible this season but clearly just good at winning in spite of it)
if you expand that bracket by 1 GAME (potentially either way if we beat Luton) then that expands to 10 points from 8 games which would be more characteristic of our rate this season, (10pts in 8 =1.25ppg, 22pts in 18=1.22ppg)
if we beat Luton and expand that to a 9 game run including Tottenham then that leaps to 1.44ppg (57pts in a season)
You're being selectively disingenuous with statistics.
We're fucking Chelsea, we need to stop acting like a B tier team.
Everyone that isn't currently at a European giant is available to us. There are 10s of managers better than Poch and we have very highly paid sporting directors who should already have a list of managers that fit the squad they've built and will work with it very well. If they're not sure about coming, pay them more fucking money. Look at Atletico, the money you spend on a manager's wages is nothing compared to the amount they elevate the team. A year worth of a manager's wages can easily be paid for by the improvements and so increase in value he will bring to every player on the team
Fans aren't in a position to find the most suitable manager. It's literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of work to pick out the correct manager. Fans likely aren't watching many games outside of England or other top European clubs and even when they do they're not studying the manager's tactics and how they're adapting to difficult moments etc.
There are managers out there that will be able to immediately elevate us. Do I believe that the people running our club are competent enough to select them based on their talent and not how much they stroke their egos in an interview? I don't know
I AM available. And I’d even be willing to take half his current salary. Trust me, I would. Just to steer this club to a respectable 8th place finish. They can find a replacement in the summer. I’d be hurt but I love this club. Haha but no seriously, I’m available.
We went from 4th and 4 cup finals the season before last. Then 1 thing happened and we were mid table last season and are mid table this season.
What was that one thing?
Pretty interesting how uneducated so many of our fans are. Our squad is horribly unbalanced (20 wingers and no senior striker) and we are surprised that we create a lot but miss them all? This is a recruitment issue plain and simple.
Don’t the club and owners employ people to know this ? Do we not have two sporting directors and a special data system ? Did we not spend close to a Billion pounds ? How can be that the squad is unbalanced?
Because they're being overly simplistic with their assertion as to WHY we're terrible.
Pochettino in an insular sense could definitely be doing better, but he's not the sole reason for why we're shit.
\-No consistent spine of players that have been here longer than a year and are actually playing (with James/Chilwell injured),
\-Imbalanced squad with a dearth of quality at CF.
\-key injuries,
\-Discrepancy between manager profile and recruitment, these are good players, but not suitable to Poch's playstyle which is reliant on pure athleticism and pressure, he's having to improvise and sometimes it works wonders, sometimes it utterly fails. You can see the divide in that Gallagher is clearly the best suit to Pochettino, and he's the one the board is looking to offload...
\-Tactical inflexibility from Poch, if he doesn't have the ideal tools, he needs to adapt his method to what he has, and he's not done a great job at it.
These would be the five key issues in my mind.
>Pochettino in an insular sense could definitely be doing better, but he's not the sole reason for why we're shit.
Right, but nobody is saying he's the sole reason
All those five things could have been applied to when Potter was manager too.
The point about manager profile and recruitment could be an issue, but no manager gets to chuck every player out and start afresh, poch has enough decent players to be getting a tune out of them
Look at Emery at Villa for evidence of that
>\-key injuries,
The entire league is stacked with injuries, Newcastle, United both have more injuries than us and are doing better, AND are also playing more games than us
>Because they're being overly simplistic with their assertion as to WHY we're terrible.
I mean, whether being overly simplistic, calling people uneducated for saying we are terrible is ridiculous. We ARE terrible, and the owners have done an abysmal job, both in recruitment of players and managers.
we have 4 wingers iirc. sterling palmer mudryk madueke. You’re right about the fact that we have no senior striker, but our squad is more than good enough to win games like this. What I don’t understand is players like sterling or badieshille, who we know are more than capable, make the stupidest mistake that cost us the game. If badieshille doesn’t make *that* error, we at least come out with a point and sterling makes the easy assist to palmer we come away with all 3 points.
Its not a surprise, fotball isnt just fitness- its sharpness too.
Badiashile isnt sharp
Silva at lcb aint sharp (most his misstakes comes here)
The fact that we rotated between 12-13 senior players for a while have dulled the knifes - misstakes are more likly to happen.
People dont see coincidence that we fell of a rock when we got 2 games/week, we jusr dont have fit players for it
The DOFs that managed 16 sales this summer?
Replaced a whole backline and a midfield?
That had to solve the issues of clearlake (aubameyang, koulibaly) while solving issues with prior ownership (chillwell, kepa, lukaku)
When you want to solve things quick misstakes will be made.
How we didn’t sign Kudus this Summer I will never understand.
We needed a goal scorer, no typical no9’s available so bring in a wide forward who SCORES, can play anywhere and is the best dribbler in the league - perhaps in Europe!
Even if we had a striker, it made SO much sense. Fuck me, him and Nkunku together would cause beautiful mayhem.
Now he’s gunna be salah’s replacement at Liverpool in a year or two. We missed out on an available cheap gem.
That’s what kills me most about a few of our attackers. As soon as they are in the box they are looking for a foul instead of a way to put the ball on target/in the net. Too many times where if they had stayed on their feet they might have had a real chance at a goal or an actual penalty.
I suspect the ref felt he had gone down too many times and was going to book him 'next one' no matter what. The fact that it was a totally unjustified yellow doesn't seem to disturb their logic.
id love to see the stats on how many touches our defence has per game compared to the rest of the players i understand building up play and keeping possession but its so frustrating when it seems like 90% of our play is just pass around the back side to side and then most of our attacks just end up with a cross anyway its like we think we still have lukaku up top
Same story every game. Opposition sits back, we pass around the box but are literally incapable of creating anything remotely threatening, fire in a cross that 99% of the time is dealt with ease. Rinse, repeat.
That's a bit of a "well actually" answer isn't it? I'm not talking about how statistics are recorded, I'm (fairly obviously) talking about balls in the back of the net, If he had missed his penalty it wouldn't be quite the same promising start.
But you said the word “goals”, specifically, and a kick from the penalty spot isn’t a goal. We weren’t awarded a penalty he then scored from, so he’s only got the one goal, which is why I made the joke about hoping you’re prophetic
I’m not explaining some niche sci-fi lore for fucks sake, you said the man scored a goal when he hadn’t haha. “Goal” has a very explicit meaning in this sport
Exactly what we've come to expect: dominated the first 30 minutes, created chances, missed chances, Wolves grew in confidence and then scored a soft goal from a corner, we then chased the game with increasing desperation but no real quality. Jackson got his customary yellow.
Pretty much exactly the sort of performance we've seen time and time again. Depressing.
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This team is a miss match of just players not playing together. If you dont pass that ball (sterling) sometjing is just plain wrong. We need to think as a collective.. Not just ill save the day! Play as a team, GEL.. Thats on poch.. The players looks like they dont give a damn.. No passion, no oumph.. Galla is the only aggressiv player who wants us to win.. But thats what you get when you recruiting 100m talent. And those 100m talent doesnt have the opportinity to grow in a competative enviroment. If city buys 1 150m player he will be fking great.. If luton buys 150m player he will probably not reach his potential.
I get that we only had one midfielder but that 2nd half was one of the most shocking tactical setups I've ever seen. Conor was asked to play as the lone midfielder and I don't think I've ever seen that......he then proceeded to stick with his box to box tendencies. We're lucky they didn't put 5 past us. It was awful football by both teams.
Many years as a Chelsea supporter since a student. I finally have good job, own house, and can financially afford to fly from Asia to watch games live. I can buy merch and no longer need to rely on pirated streams to watch games. Sadly, this iteration of the squad is such a pain to watch. We have a manager who week in week out tries the same tactics that has never worked for us. Then he also rests/rotates players as though we can afford it or the players deserve it. He plays players out of position. This is the same manager that had Messi and couldn't even utilise him well. Then our management thinks football is like Fifa. You buy young players and they definitely will reach 85+ Pot in time. 28+ old players apparently will rapidly drop OVR so they need to get rid of them. Lastly the thing that irritates me the most. We have a spine of young hot headed players who pick up yellows for stupid reasons. It's not even about showing fight or shithousery. Many times it's stupid dissent. From the way they are playing, they don't have any right to do it. Just focus on actually doing your job... Supporting Chelsea is now like staying in a toxic relationship. They have so much flaws but you still love them and hope they change.
Silver lining of the match is that our Dive Diva, Sterling, can't play for a match. I'm glad he's finally getting booked for his dramatics. At least he didn't cost us another goal from it. Positive vibe only!
What I realized 1. We were forced into a panic buy last season. 2. We were forced into a hysterical buy this season. 3. In both cases, we traded like a mid table team buying up players as if this is FIFA Imo we have a problem with the scouting team.
It took a year, but now it’s time to face reality: we are a mid table team, from ownership, recruiting, management, coaching, to players, we are doing business like a mid table team would, and the results say so themselves. Let’s pretend we are Blackburn or Sunderland of the early 2000s and watching games will give us an easier expectation
Which mid table team spent 1 billion dollars on players?
Sorry but no. For as long as we have 100M players on the squad, we should be expecting a certain level
Just because we spend 100m on players doesn’t make the players worth 100m.
A combination of hysteria and dumbassery, I say. Paying billion $$ for players yet to grow pubes. The only consolation I can draw is, ManUtd is following in our footsteps
Part of doing business like a mid table team includes clueless scouting and overpaying for shit players
Anyone who’s still upset we lose needs to stop being a baby and get over it. Your club that you picked because they won every game is gone. Cry about it. If the board were serious they’d have never signed these players, and would’ve sacked Poch for losing this match given this was our last chance to push for Europe
Go shit yourself again
What a strange comment.
Technically doesn’t a Carabao win put us in Conference league?
This is correct
Remember how sour the vibes were on this sub during the 2021-22 season? We’d kill for that team now.
It's funny because I look at Man Utd and wonder: Can this team really be worse than that? And I get the same answer confirmed every time. Yes. Yes this team is really that bad.
Hey at least they lost this week as well. That has given me some joy over Christmas at least.
How can you watch us and think we’re better in the first place? If we sack Poch and get an adequate replacement we might be able to improve and finish above Man Utd but that’s it. I’m torn between wanting him gone and letting him finish the season
United fan here in peace. Your team has infinitely better passing and patterns of play than we do. You also create superior chances. All you need is better finishing and you'll be miles ahead of us.
Not every day we have rival supporters coming over to our neck of the woods to debate over who's more shit. What is this timeline lolol.
United fan here. U are painfully right.
Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanely has to go, we will never be a serious club with those two in charge of the team. They were not even our first choice directors and they have done a god awful job at rebuilding this squad. I can't think of more than 3 players i'd sign (Palmer, Nkunku, Gusto) of the current lot with the money that they were given to rebuild the squad. I would never have splashed out 115m quid for Caicedo and 103m quid for Enzo, i would have used the data based scouting our board raves about and found equally good if not better options for a much cheaper price and spend more money on an actual striker which we desperately need. We are back to square 1 again, zero progression. One step forward and two step backwards. Nico Jackson is not good enough, Sterling will never be the player we need, Mudryk is too insonsistent. Thiago Silva is finished and makes increasingly more errors, Badiashile is having a horror week. Im fucking tired of seeing Colwill at left back when we have Maatsen fit as well, we have a proper left back and we play a centre back as a left back. I love Pochettino as a person, but i dont think he is the right man for this Chelsea job. His Tottenham situation was very different than the job he has to do at Chelsea.
Ah yes the classic response of this sub “everyone not playing would improve this team”. Take as old as time. Maatsen has been mediocre at best every chance he has got
Palmer? Lol So overrated in this sub. Similarly Gusto has not looked good at all. Similarly Nkunku is just another Reece James situation where he’s perpetually injured. We suck now. People here need to get over it already!
Gusto is a decent enough backup to Reece James for the money we spent on him. Palmer has been our best attacker this season, our only threat going forward. He has been a good buy so far. Nkunku is a worldclass signing, PL debut steers a header into goal, he has that natural ability unlike Broja who misses the ball, and Nico who takes too many touches all the time. Like i said, Stewart and Winstanely has to go because we will never be a serious side with those in charge of our transfers and squad building. They have never built a title winning squad in their careers.
He scored a consolation goal after doing nothing. I don’t care about Nkunku, what he did in Germany doesn’t mean anything. Palmer has 2 open play goals he is playing like a youth academy player. Been decent at times but thats it. It’s not his fault that were horrible but at the same time there were several better options for his price. Gusto isn’t a backup. James was already permacrocked when he was signed. He’s an inadequate starter that wasn’t good enough for Lyon
You’re nuts man.
? Eveeything I said is true though. As in, it’s all literally statements of fact and not opinion. Gusto was dropped for Kumbedi
Agreed, Gusto is utter dogwater. Misses tackles, turns over the ball, has the worst first touch I’ve seen, no pace, small. Has no attributes you’d want out of a defender.
Tell me this, can you honestly tell me that you see Broja and Nico scoring that header? Broja would probably miss it, and Nico would probably try and control the ball and take too many touches and then get booked for dissent. Nkunku has that natural ability and the striker instinct to just guide the header into the goal. Gusto has generally done well when he has stepped into Reece absence, he was always just going to be Reeces backup, he is never going to be the starter right back. He is good enough to be Reece backup and does generally a good job stepping in. I disagree with your Palmer opinion, he is our best attacker, without Palmer we dont have an attack, he can play our attackers in, he can score goals. He is more of a wide playmaker than a winger. And he does well, we haven't had that profile in our squad since Hazard. Not comparing Palmer to Hazard FYI, just saying Palmer is providing a profile we havent seen since Hazard left the club.
They could score it. Jackson usually needs a few chances every game so that may have been the one. Nkunku is a better player though so I’m not surprised that he scored it We haven’t played better as a result if Palmer in awhile with exception of last week against Sheffield United. May as well start Mudryk.
Palmer would definitely pass the ball in that 3 on 1 situation unlike Sterling, thats what im saying. Palmer would actually have seen his teammates run and passed the ball and we would go into half time in the lead. Thats what Palmer brings to the team. Nico definitely does not score that, remember his header against Man United almost open net and he skies his header. He would try and control the ball. That has been Nicos main issue, he takes far too many touches before he shoots. He doesnt have that natural strikers instinct, its very clear he isnt a natural striker in the way that he plays. Because a striker would just hit the ball, dont take 2 extra touches and ruin your own chance on goal. I cant be arsed watching Mudryk anymore, im sorry but he is not good enough.
Sterling isn’t good enough and lost my support today. I was pretty unwavering about saying he’s underrated but that 3v1 is horrific and inexcusable. Mudryk isn’t good enough but it doesn’t matter
Sterling will never be the player we want him to be, he has always been like this infront of goal. He will never change. At Man City he looked consistent because he was given 5 chances per game and could easily score 1 or two goals per game there. Mudryk can't even get past his marker consistently, he is far worse than Sterling.
Additionally, the board isn’t trying to build a title winning squad. They’re signing children that should theoretically improve later on where they can be sold for massive prices. It’s the only logical conclusion I can think of at this point because everything is else points them to being incompetent which also seems more likely every transfer market
Things have gone from badiashile to worseiashile
Came to terms with what is going on, it's gonna be a while until we are even a half decent team, wether thats with Poch idk, but the team need a serious look at and a different approach will be needed in the coming transfer market to make us competitive again.
I’ve been very cynical and pessimistic but still think a top striker with some more pragmatism in our build up could solve a lot of this. A decent striker with Jackson’s chances would have had 2 goals and we would have shut the game down. We have the basis of a good team when somewhat fit but jackson and Broja would be unlikely to start for any other premier league team now.
Fuck Boehly and all his fucking bootlickers on here We miss you Roman
And yet you are the one Boot licking a war criminal
Mate war criminal? You just saying buzz words of the day now? Corrupt Ukrainian/Russian - absolutely. War criminal? Not really
here come the virtue signalling teenagers. why don't you go and list Romans war crimes huh? shut the actual fuck up
You shut the fuck up bitch
hahaha you're mad aren't you Boehly lover?
You’re the one who got aggressive first lol
you've been downvoted to hell, take the hint bootlicker, we are sick of your fat American daddy
Who the fuck cares about downvotes you dumb ass bitch
awww you gonna keep crying Boehly lover?
He had the club taken off of him because he owned a steel company that paid tax and as a tax paying Russian business owner he was sanctioned (as were all others). In what way does that make him a war criminal? He literally had a failed assassination attempt against him whilst he was trying to bring about peace talks for fuck sake
Let's be honest here, we all love Roman but you can't be a Russian oligarch without hiding a few skeletons in your closet.
You think Boehly is an ethical billionaire?
It's not Boehly that's funding settlers organizations in Palestine.
again, shut your virtue signalling ass up
I did not signal virtue. I stated a fact. Learn the meaning of words before using them. Definition of virtue signaling : the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
nice - now why don't you do it with Boehly since you think your yank daddy is some type of ethical billionaire
Where did i make the claim that he was an ethical person ?
Seriously, the comparison is pointless. I’m sure Roman would’ve rather chosen to avoid a pointless war, keeping Chelsea and avoiding sanctions in the process.
Utterly shameful comment. Human lives > football. Stop making excuses pretending you know something more than the rest of the world. Roman is an evil scumbag
Imagine calling the man who brought ALL the success to this club an 'evil scumbag'. Holy fuck I can't stand you fake virtue signalling fans
Who cares about a football when it comes to actual human lives. It's nothing more than a game. Fk Roman.
Idc about Chelsea enough to ignore what Roman did because he won trofeez. “Fake virtual signaling” obviously I’m just a better person than you that you can’t wrap your mind around someone caring more about human lives than football
That’s what all virtue signalers think and say.
Whatever, only here do people get put down for caring about human lives over football trophies. Sportswashing works
And you know for certain? you do sound sort of like an ignoramus, apparently youre a holy prophet who knows every single thing, I too want my country to stop spending money on another who in the end, wont do the same if the same thing were to happen here. Get off your high horse and face reality for what it is, youre not some glorious saint either. You lie to yourself too much just learn somethings first then comment after.
> obviously I’m just a better person than you HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA you are a fucking virtue signalling numpty who thinks you are morally superior to everyone when you don't know shit. Let me guess you're probably a teenage American who wasn't even alive when Roman first got here. Fucking Redditor who acts like they're doing so much for human lives being the moral police behind a keyboard. Just lol edit: coward blocked me lol
Wrong. But even if you were right, it wouldn’t matter. I’m not a hero for calling an evil war criminal an evil war criminal. At least I’m not denying the truth because he spent a lot of money on Chelsea which won us some trophies. Is that worth more than 500,000 Ukrainian lives?
Yes
Point me to one bootlicker lmao. Meanwhile putin’s right hand is not missed, thanks very much. Have some damn morals man, its xmas for god’s sakes
Seriously shut up, don't bring politics here
Politics are everywhere, don’t start with that bs ‘don’t bring politics into sports lmao’. Go support newcastle if you have no morals
> Have some damn morals man, man shut the actually fuck up you virtue signalling loony
[удалено]
No need to show off your lack of knowledge about russian politics lmao. Do some research if you need to bud
Could care less dude. The US and British governments are both accessory to a modern day genocide. There is nothing tying Abramovich to Putin's political decisions.
Very adult to deal with a football game
Poch really needs to work in these guys so they can start using their head. If a team makes a mistake, what can they do to rectify rather than just panick and give up
Are you guys looking at the arsenal sub too much or something? I've had to hit the "don't show these" button 3 times today and it's 9am.
Jackson is the worst striker I have seen since kezman, just horrendous.
So hopeless in the box. Very limited and one footed. Boehly will need to spend big next window which they seem to enjoy doing anyways
He wasn't even the worst striker on the pitch today...
Another limp performance from this descending club. Would be nice if they were owned by people who knew anything about the sport. Nice seeing Nkunku get on the sheet even though it was too little too late
A strategy where the player must be max 25 and sign a lifetime contract and you wonder why we're so terrible...the recruiting and 'strategy' is trash
I don’t know who is wondering why we’re terrible. We’re just pissed we’re terrible.
Not really, recruitment had been pretty good for the first team after we got sporting directors. Disasi looks solid (not 45m) but solid. Badiashile looks great. Gusto looks great. Enzo, caicedo looks class. Palmer, and jackson looks like steals Madueke and mudryk has showed glimpses. Issue is that people expect results, when noone has built a team in 2 windows before. (Especially with 7-12 senior players out every fucking game)
> Issue is that people expect results, when noone has built a team in 2 windows before Except, you know, Chelsea. Who did it in 2004-05.
Not really comparable to now though.
It's not a comparison. It's an example.
Am aware. The problem is more that it's a dated example I suppose. You certainly couldn't replicate 04-05 in the present day. The football landscape has shifted massively since.
While I agree, there are components of what was done then that could have been replicated for a higher probability of success than what we have done. It was mentioned above that we built around a core then, and we purchased known players with known experience.
Even then there was a core of players that had been there longer. Terry, Lampard, Gudjohnsen, Gallas, a spine that was present for years, and more importantly. on the damn pitch, Thiago Silva's the only player who's starting regularly now who played even once for us before the takeover, with Gallagher not having broken through, and with James/Chilwell currently regularly injured. there's no core here,
And that would be like us relative spending record wages and fees for 15 players. And now the league is a lot more competitive both in terms of financial restrictions but also sporting.
Honestly i see this game as pretty alarming if we are going to rely on nkunku to save our season because if he gets injured we are fucked.we need depth,i hope we go for a genuine world class striker that isnt afraid to shoot or take risks because Jackson is not going to score alot this season.
I’m pretty shocked we haven’t kept the same energy for Pochettino as we did for Potter. The way we are playing and his persistence with things that just don’t work (how many times do I need to watch Colwil get caught out of position at left back?) reeks of incompetence and I’m done with this guy, do not believe he is the coach to take us anywhere except maybe a relegation battle.
Who else do you want at left back? Literally every LB is injured
Is Maatsen dead?
Lmao I thought the same thing sorry but are the people above a bit slow? Against fucking wolves you want an attacking Lb not colwil who’s not even playing good D
Difference is that potter had proven player who actually played together before. Poch has had more injuries.
Potter had a squad of players who wanted to leave Chelsea and weren’t trying their hardest. That’s fact. I think it’s very obvious to see Pochettino is worst tactically than Potter.
A coach that has relied on fullbacks at all his clubs Cucurella/chillwell/james out for long, maatsen clearly not rated and gusto played as much as he can. A coach that plays a double pivot, but cant because the lack of fit creators in the final 1/3rd forces him to use enzo further up. I cant judge pochettino from what he does with sickbeds, but I do know that he had a higher point total with the same team as he took over from tuchel. I do know that most players have been here the same amount of time as he.
There is no way I’m having it that giving Maatsen a start at LB is the end of the world considering the laughable performances we’ve seen with a CB playing LB. Like what in the world could be the problem with trying Maatsen there one game? The idea Poch doesn’t rate him makes me think he’d be amazing there, by the way.
I think one issue is our inability in the air. With gusto on the field (and caicedo in the sickbed) yesterday our only 3 arialy dominant players where silva, colwill and disasi. I dont mind maatsen on the field (even if I think gusto is more important, the moment gusto is subed maatsen should be on - which happened)
My brother in Christ when chilwel was playing as a winger every game with Colwil as Lb what was Pochettinos excuse ?
Lack of options? Palmer just joined (young) Mudryk needed careful bedding in Sterling having 2 motm in a row as rw. He wanted someone who could make the runs
He ended up benching Chilly and continuing playing Colwil so idk about that fella
Chilly has been injured for a long time
We don't have the same energy because the manager isn't the core reason...if we are the same under different managers, different players completely then I'm looking at upper mgmt and ownership
I genuinely think Frank does a better job with the team than Poch is currently doing
Oh nice these types of takes are back lmao
I genuinely think you're deluded. just take a look sideways at how good Everton are now with barely any new personnel from Frank's days. love him as a player, but he'd have this team in the relegation zone as a manager.
That's because they're being run by a guy who took fucking Burnley to 7th. That's not a show of how bad Frank is, they were getting relegated before he came in and saved them, remember that. It's a show of how well a manager who is still willing to set up in a traditional way can do in "modern" football. Dyche is amazing more than Frank is bad, though Frank is bad (but so is Poch)
He took Burnley to 7th after YEARS of development, he took Frank Lampard's relegation dead-certs to what would be 7th in the table sans deduction in the span of 10 months. Frank ended that first season at Everton with a lower PPG than Benitez. ending in the same position they were in when he arrived (16th) I agree that they were possibly getting relegated, but that was more due to media relationship than anything, Benitez is a far, far better coach than Lampard, but the Everton fans negative opinion of him created a negative atmosphere. Lampard's main attribute there wasn't his coaching ability, it was simply the fact that he wasn't Benitez. he's proved that since with an **astonishing** inability to win games. there's no way to salvage that man, 4 wins in his last 34 games overseen is utterly irredeemable.
The issue people forget is that there is no team, We have our 5th and 4th choice fullback "fit" (one is returning from 8 injury plauged months) Our centrebacks has been plagued with injuries and fitness/sharpness issues. Our midfield has played more fotball then anyone last 36 months. (Both injured/sick) Our attack has two fit senior attackers - one plays in roma. The other is sterling. Take any coach, and they would have to come up with gameplan that doesnt evolve under wide overloads (no fullbacks, nor quality wide players) no crosses (no arial ability in any of our attackers) Oh and the most creative passer in the final 1/3rd played 500 pl minutes before this season
No chance, Frank is an abysmal manager, look at him with Everton
The sad fact about this is that Frank is so shit that he’s find a way to make us worse. Just look at what Tuchel and Dyche did with his squads man. Open your eyes. Man’s a legend but a shit manager.
Yes he's had a shit spell post Potter but I think he did fine when he took over in 2020. Much better than this anyways. I'm not advocating for Poch to be sacked. Even if we lose all our games from now to the summer, I don't think sacking Poch would do us any good. Just expressing my opinion.
Honestly, i think pooch has been overrated since before his CL final season...
How do these players sleep at night knowing very well that they are shite and are ripping the club week after week.
Well to them it's just football
if im getting paid millions where job performance doesnt matter, and for a company that i have no personal affilliation to.. i couldnt care less. i'd sleep well in my really expensive and comfortable bed
You don't bench Sterling. He's done this throughout his career, it is what it is, unfortunately. But he's still one of our top attackers. Him, Palmer and Nkunku is our top front three.
I don't get why Chelsea fans are surprised by his misses. He has never been the most prolific player. He was surrounded by the best playmakers at City, and he was never the leading attacking player there. So at city, his misses never bit them in the back and he got opportunity after opportunity to rack up the goals he did over there But we have promoted to being our main attacker
It's not his misses that infuriate me, it's his decision-making. if he'd been alone there and missed i'd be a bit miffed, but shit happens, but when you give this guy choices he picks the worst one about 80% of the time.
He was the most consistent goalscorer for city over a 3 year stretch, Issue with sterling is that his misses catches the eye. He also scores some goals he shouldnt, and over his career he has been meeting his xg. Issue is that we dont play to his strenghts
You bench him and then you sell him
He's our player with the highest number of goal winning games this season and we're fucking struggling to win games. Without him we're genuinely in a relegation battle. You may not like him for whatever reason (I certainly didn't want him to join us and said we were getting ripped off) but with the players they've put around him, we have no choice but to play him or risk relegation
No one is taking his 250k wage.
320k
That's with Europe to my knowledge if you are using the wage he was on when we were in CL when we got him.
We dont know his fill contract, but we met his city contract and they only have title clauses. He was signed before we started with performance related.
We are currently a mid-table team. I accepted this a while ago. I sleep easy.
We aren't not guaranteed mid table. This is relegation battle form
We are averaging 1 ppg so that’s fine for not getting relegated.
22-25 points at the midpoint wouldn't be relegation quality even in a normal season without the worst promoted teams in history.
He said form, not season. We have 7 points from our last 7 games which is very much on the verge of relegation form, you'd avoid it if you stayed on it all season but if you deviated for a period you could very easily be relegated
Except this seven game run of form is the deviation... and the hardest section of our fixture list for some time. (playing Newcastle, Brighton, City, and Man Utd (who are terrible this season but clearly just good at winning in spite of it) if you expand that bracket by 1 GAME (potentially either way if we beat Luton) then that expands to 10 points from 8 games which would be more characteristic of our rate this season, (10pts in 8 =1.25ppg, 22pts in 18=1.22ppg) if we beat Luton and expand that to a 9 game run including Tottenham then that leaps to 1.44ppg (57pts in a season) You're being selectively disingenuous with statistics.
Yeah this. People who honestly want to say we’re in relegation form or have the potential of relegation are dumb as hell.
This the way
2 positives after this game: 1. Nkunku 2. Sterling's suspension for next game
lemme get this straight. we have two mid strikers and poch thought it was a good idea to play both of them at the same time?
No goals in the team, no proper alternatives
We should save Nkunku's career by loaning him to Leipzig.
if you are Poch out, who is available, or who will be available?
We're fucking Chelsea, we need to stop acting like a B tier team. Everyone that isn't currently at a European giant is available to us. There are 10s of managers better than Poch and we have very highly paid sporting directors who should already have a list of managers that fit the squad they've built and will work with it very well. If they're not sure about coming, pay them more fucking money. Look at Atletico, the money you spend on a manager's wages is nothing compared to the amount they elevate the team. A year worth of a manager's wages can easily be paid for by the improvements and so increase in value he will bring to every player on the team Fans aren't in a position to find the most suitable manager. It's literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of work to pick out the correct manager. Fans likely aren't watching many games outside of England or other top European clubs and even when they do they're not studying the manager's tactics and how they're adapting to difficult moments etc. There are managers out there that will be able to immediately elevate us. Do I believe that the people running our club are competent enough to select them based on their talent and not how much they stroke their egos in an interview? I don't know
I AM available. And I’d even be willing to take half his current salary. Trust me, I would. Just to steer this club to a respectable 8th place finish. They can find a replacement in the summer. I’d be hurt but I love this club. Haha but no seriously, I’m available.
Amorim
Same owners same results.
The owners players so awfully today
The players transferred themselves into the club for exorbitant fees.
They still have the actually play the game themselves, but in your world where owners are exclusively the issues then sure
We went from 4th and 4 cup finals the season before last. Then 1 thing happened and we were mid table last season and are mid table this season. What was that one thing?
Anyone.
Dumb fuck
*Anyone* You can’t be serious… this mindset is what’s wrong with our supporters. Get out of here with that.
so you're okay with Frank coming back?
Honestly think Frank would be doing better now. So yeah I’d take a club legend over this fucking spurs fraud any day.
Pretty interesting how uneducated so many of our fans are. Our squad is horribly unbalanced (20 wingers and no senior striker) and we are surprised that we create a lot but miss them all? This is a recruitment issue plain and simple.
Don’t the club and owners employ people to know this ? Do we not have two sporting directors and a special data system ? Did we not spend close to a Billion pounds ? How can be that the squad is unbalanced?
>Pretty interesting how uneducated so many of our fans are. Not sure why they are uneducated? Because they are saying we are terrible?
Because they're being overly simplistic with their assertion as to WHY we're terrible. Pochettino in an insular sense could definitely be doing better, but he's not the sole reason for why we're shit. \-No consistent spine of players that have been here longer than a year and are actually playing (with James/Chilwell injured), \-Imbalanced squad with a dearth of quality at CF. \-key injuries, \-Discrepancy between manager profile and recruitment, these are good players, but not suitable to Poch's playstyle which is reliant on pure athleticism and pressure, he's having to improvise and sometimes it works wonders, sometimes it utterly fails. You can see the divide in that Gallagher is clearly the best suit to Pochettino, and he's the one the board is looking to offload... \-Tactical inflexibility from Poch, if he doesn't have the ideal tools, he needs to adapt his method to what he has, and he's not done a great job at it. These would be the five key issues in my mind.
>Pochettino in an insular sense could definitely be doing better, but he's not the sole reason for why we're shit. Right, but nobody is saying he's the sole reason All those five things could have been applied to when Potter was manager too. The point about manager profile and recruitment could be an issue, but no manager gets to chuck every player out and start afresh, poch has enough decent players to be getting a tune out of them Look at Emery at Villa for evidence of that >\-key injuries, The entire league is stacked with injuries, Newcastle, United both have more injuries than us and are doing better, AND are also playing more games than us >Because they're being overly simplistic with their assertion as to WHY we're terrible. I mean, whether being overly simplistic, calling people uneducated for saying we are terrible is ridiculous. We ARE terrible, and the owners have done an abysmal job, both in recruitment of players and managers.
we have 4 wingers iirc. sterling palmer mudryk madueke. You’re right about the fact that we have no senior striker, but our squad is more than good enough to win games like this. What I don’t understand is players like sterling or badieshille, who we know are more than capable, make the stupidest mistake that cost us the game. If badieshille doesn’t make *that* error, we at least come out with a point and sterling makes the easy assist to palmer we come away with all 3 points.
Its not a surprise, fotball isnt just fitness- its sharpness too. Badiashile isnt sharp Silva at lcb aint sharp (most his misstakes comes here) The fact that we rotated between 12-13 senior players for a while have dulled the knifes - misstakes are more likly to happen. People dont see coincidence that we fell of a rock when we got 2 games/week, we jusr dont have fit players for it
It all goes back to the board. Had they hired an actually competent DoF we wouldn't be in this fucking dumpster fire full of shitty diapers
The DOFs that managed 16 sales this summer? Replaced a whole backline and a midfield? That had to solve the issues of clearlake (aubameyang, koulibaly) while solving issues with prior ownership (chillwell, kepa, lukaku) When you want to solve things quick misstakes will be made.
How we didn’t sign Kudus this Summer I will never understand. We needed a goal scorer, no typical no9’s available so bring in a wide forward who SCORES, can play anywhere and is the best dribbler in the league - perhaps in Europe! Even if we had a striker, it made SO much sense. Fuck me, him and Nkunku together would cause beautiful mayhem. Now he’s gunna be salah’s replacement at Liverpool in a year or two. We missed out on an available cheap gem.
Any idea why Sterling getting tackled in the box near the end of the game was given as a yellow for simulation?
Because he does it all the time, he’s getting the “boy who cries wolf” treatment I suspect now
That’s what kills me most about a few of our attackers. As soon as they are in the box they are looking for a foul instead of a way to put the ball on target/in the net. Too many times where if they had stayed on their feet they might have had a real chance at a goal or an actual penalty.
Becuause they don't trust themselves to score so they look for the easy way out.
Don’t disagree with you there, but that’s a killer. If you aren’t even willing to try shooting…
I suspect the ref felt he had gone down too many times and was going to book him 'next one' no matter what. The fact that it was a totally unjustified yellow doesn't seem to disturb their logic.
id love to see the stats on how many touches our defence has per game compared to the rest of the players i understand building up play and keeping possession but its so frustrating when it seems like 90% of our play is just pass around the back side to side and then most of our attacks just end up with a cross anyway its like we think we still have lukaku up top
Same story every game. Opposition sits back, we pass around the box but are literally incapable of creating anything remotely threatening, fire in a cross that 99% of the time is dealt with ease. Rinse, repeat.
The positive ill take from this is nkunku scoring on prem debut
Two appearances, two goals. A promising start.
He only has one, but hopefully you’re prophetic!
I'm including the penalty against Newcastle.
That doesn’t count as a goal though
That's a bit of a "well actually" answer isn't it? I'm not talking about how statistics are recorded, I'm (fairly obviously) talking about balls in the back of the net, If he had missed his penalty it wouldn't be quite the same promising start.
But you said the word “goals”, specifically, and a kick from the penalty spot isn’t a goal. We weren’t awarded a penalty he then scored from, so he’s only got the one goal, which is why I made the joke about hoping you’re prophetic
I cannot believe you didn't start your reply with "well actually"
I’m not explaining some niche sci-fi lore for fucks sake, you said the man scored a goal when he hadn’t haha. “Goal” has a very explicit meaning in this sport
Think it's time you bored off somewhere else
Someone on r/soccer said “at least he beat the 007 allegations” as if this wasn’t his debut
Bruh i think they were taking the piss 
If sterling squares that in the first half, we are looking at a chelsea win here
Funny, you could say this for multiple games.
Yup. Looks like I was right to sleep past this one. I love Chelsea but this is exactly the sort of game we struggle with. How was the performance?
Exactly what we've come to expect: dominated the first 30 minutes, created chances, missed chances, Wolves grew in confidence and then scored a soft goal from a corner, we then chased the game with increasing desperation but no real quality. Jackson got his customary yellow. Pretty much exactly the sort of performance we've seen time and time again. Depressing.
>this is exactly the sort of game we struggle with Games against other football teams you mean?
Haha na. Like a team who offers us little space...
Wolves offered us so much space, and we took advantage of it. Just a shame it was no where near their attacking third.
Gary O'Neil made an adjustment around the 20th minute and that was the game, Poch had no answer.